Rating: 
Summary: Well-intentiond biopic hasn't much depth
Review: While watching "Introducing Dorothy Dandridge", I decided that the filmmakers missed the boat by not concentrating more on Dandridge's struggles with racism than on her personal life. I am NOT one of those people who think that all movies about 20th Century black figures must concentrate on this area. In Dandridge's case, however, she really was a pioneer [and perhaps didn't at all like the role? a reluctant warrior?], particularly considering that the peak of her Hollywood career coincided with the Brown vs. the Board of Education decision [1954]. The real tragedy in her life was her being born twenty years too soon. On the other hand, her personal life story does not seem all that unusual - lots of stars have had children with birth defects, have had rotten luck in relationships, have slept with their directors, have had money problems, etc. The 'soap opera' approach is often an effective one. It worked really well in "Me and my Shadow: Life With Judy Garland". In Dandridge's case, though, it sort of lessens the importance of her life and struggle. The solution, perhaps, would have been to make the movie as a four or six hour miniseries rather than as a regular two hour feature. Halle Berry is quite good as Dandridge, making her at once willful and vulnerable. In a beautiful twist of irony, she plays the first black actress ever to be nominated for a Best Actress Oscar in 1954. Dandridge lost. Forty-eight years later, Ms. Berry herself became the first black actress to win the honor. Several scenes struck me as odd. For example, the whole Las Vegas sequence works dramatically to highlight the oppression faced by black stars in the 1950s, but the setup doesn't make sense. Why would anyone have signed a contract with a hotel and then arrived there so unaware of the conditions that existed there? I'm not questioning the prejudices of the time or even the swimming pool incident, but I doubt that the events occurred anywhere close to the way they were portrayed. If nothing else, it makes Dandridge come off as naive as hell and Mills as a very poor manager. I don't know about Mills, but I imagine that Dandridge was one cool, sophisticated lady. There seems as though there was an exception amount of dramatic license taken in telling her story. I wonder why. I suspect her real story was extraordinarily dramatic.
Rating: 
Summary: Berry & Spiner shine
Review: Words are not enough to describe Halle Berry's performance, she pulls off a host of emotions with flawless grace. Brent Spiner amazingly matches her pace as the pitiful manager with effortless ease. Any holes in the script are masked by the two magnetic leads with a great example of how acting should be.
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